Happening Now: Era of Budget Delays Over- FG

The Federal Government has said that the era where budget was presented by the Executive and passed late by the National Assembly is over.

The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze said this during the public presentation of the 2021 budget on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said with the presentation of the 2020 Budget by President Muhammadu Buhari in October last year and also in the same month for the 2021 budget, the government has demonstrated that it is committed to having a budget that works for the people.

In recent times, there have been disagreement between the executive and the National Assembly over the passage of the annual Federal Government budget.

As a result of the power tussle between the executive and the legislature, the budget implementation has always commenced very late into the year.

For instance, the 2011 budget was passed on March 25, 2011, while that of 2012 was passed on March 14 of that same year.

For the 2013 budget, it was passed by the lawmakers on December 20, 2012 and signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in February 2013, while the 2014, 2015 and 2016 budgets were also signed in the month of May of each year.

The 2017 budget, which was submitted to the lawmakers in December 2016, was not passed and assented to until June of last year.

The 2018 budget, which was designed to consolidate on the government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, was presented to the National Assembly on November 7, 2017.

It was passed by the lawmakers on May 16, 2018; transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari on May 25 and assented to on June 20.
 
Akabueze said, “We have put behind us an era of delay in the presentation of the budget.

“We ve committed ourselves to the open government principles and we have seen improvement in our budget indices.

“We are working on a budget that works for the people.”